Rising: Dom

Twenty-two-year-old musician Dom is the leader of Worcester, Massachussets pop-rock trio Dom. Dom has a last name, but he will not reveal it because he owes "a lot of money." Which sounds sort of ridiculous. But Dom is ridiculous-- in the best way possible.

He has dreams of making artful pornography and playing video games with Lil Wayne. He writes hockey stadium anthems about his cat. He does not give a shit, and it's awesome. Along with guitarist Erik and drummer Bobby K. (who also have some debt, apparently), Dom makes sunburned guitar pop with fat hooks and stargaze synths that sound triumphant, heartbreaking, and totally immediate. Dom told me one of his favorite current bands is Girls. This is not surprising.

Dom (the band) started playing together in January and their debut EP, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods, is out on vinyl May 1 via Burning Mill Records. (It's up on eMusic and Lala now.)

I spoke with Dom (the person) about his troubled upbringing, getting arrested, and Third Eye Blind:

Pitchfork: Hey Dom, what's your last name?

D: It's a secret. I don't like to divulge too much information. You never know.

Pitchfork: You never know what?

D: Let's put it this way: If somebody sees my name in the press, they'll go, "Oh my goodness, I can collect money off this guy." They'll know where to find me. I'm not a fugitive, but I owe a lot of money.

Pitchfork: Are you trying to build some internet mystique by not revealing your last name?

D: I'm sure mystery sells, but I just don't want to pay people back. [laughs]

Pitchfork: Who do you owe money to?

D: Do we really have to go down that route? The IRS. Student loans. Everybody wants money. I grew up in foster care; I bounced around a lot. I ended up accumulating a lot of debt.

Pitchfork: How did you end up in foster care?

D: It's a really weird story. There was something about me that my mother didn't like from the very beginning, so she just dumped me off when I was eight and kept the rest of her kids. It just didn't click. None of my brothers or sisters want anything to do with me and my dad is kind of crazy.

Pitchfork: When you were in foster care, did you run into other kids that had similar experiences?

D: To tell you the truth, not really. Everybody else was in there because they had been taken away, but I was given away. At the end of the day, we're both in the same boat, just fantasizing about finally being taken back and everything just being perfect. I was bummed out from age eight to around 13. Like, "Why doesn't my family love me? Why aren't they showing up to visit?" But then, at 13, I was like, "Fuck it! I'm going to have a good time." And then I got kicked out of a lot of places. [laughs]

Pitchfork: What were some of your more memorable exploits as a teenager?

D: I got into a fight with a foster brother when I was around 14 and things got really, really messy. They pressed charges and it was really embarrassing 'cause I got arrested in the school cafeteria in front of all my friends. I felt guilty for what I did. I'm not a violent person.

I ended up in lock up where they put you in a cell with this really uncomfortable bed for a couple months. And then they let you out and you have to go into like an orphanage for people who are either like super violent or mentally unfit. You have to hang out there and prove you're not a complete psycho and then you go back into the public and end up somewhere shitty and the only way to get the fuck out of that situation is to do something crazy. And then you end up in lock up again.

Pitchfork: I read a recent interview with Courtney Love where she was talking about how people who lose their parents at a young age have a better chance of being great musicians.

D: I believe that because you're trying to compensate for something and create something that's missing. People who aren't missing anything just make pretty terrible art.

Pitchfork: Your songs "Living in America" and "Jesus" take a funny, sarcastic slant on two things that people can be serious about: America and religion.

D: Well, "Jesus" isn't about "Jesus". I went through a breakup with his girl that I was dating for a long time and that song's about me doing ecstasy and trying to cope with the whole thing. Like self-medication. But if there are some Christians out there that can get down and they think I'm talking about making out with Jesus at a movie then that's fine.

"Living in America" is sort of facetious. What I really wanted to do was make a "YMCA"-type track that I would be best known for but forever hate myself for writing. Politicians can totally use it at campaigns as long as they pay me. But America's pretty awesome. I can't say enough about Worcester, Massachusetts. It's a utopia.

Pitchfork: Why?

D: With the recent passage of this new bill, artists can do some things more freely now, like carry two grams of pot without any fines. And they actually pay us money for music equipment. If you're an artist, you can fill out a form and they'll help pay for rent and give you more money on your food stamps.

D: Bochicha is the name of my cat. He's a mix between an African Savannah cat and a Norwegian forest cat. They're generally illegal in most states because they're so violent. There were some cases back in the 80s with them eating babies or something. But Bochicha is a party animal. He doesn't hurt anybody. He's great. Don't fuck with him though.

Also, "Bochicha" is the official face-off anthem of the Worcester Sharks.

D: We sent an e-mail and they got back to us. They were like, "Thanks for reaching out. We can really make some magic with this. Let's see how the audience reacts." Now it's like "Hey! Bochicha!" and everybody just goes wild. [Editor's note: According to a representative from the Worcester Sharks, they do not play "Bochicha" at their games.]

Pitchfork: What was your first concert?

D: I never went to concerts as a kid because no one let me do anything. I can't remember. It was probably something wack I wouldn't want to tell you about in an interview. Let's just say Aerosmith, that sounds pretty cool.

Pitchfork: Do you remember the first album you really cared about?

D: Third Eye Blind's first album. I liked "Semi-Charmed Life" because it's about crystal meth and that was the rage in the 90s, it was all over "90210". I got into some different stuff later on: T. Rex, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, cool stuff like that. Right now I'm listening to Happy Birthday and Girls.

Pitchfork: The guy from Girls actually had a fucked up childhood, too. He was brought up in the Children of God cult.

D: That's probably just his publicist's idea, something they cooked up to sell more records.

Pitchfork: How do we know that your story isn't bullshit, then?

D: I guess it's the same thing that Slash said in his autobiography: It sounds crazy but, believe it or not, it all really happened.

D: Yeah, we want to be on that label. I wanna go clubbing with Drake and Weezy. I wanna just just kick it with them, smoke some blunts, drink some Patron, play some video games. If they wanted to sign us, I'd be down like a clown, Charlie Brown. We know they'd give us a lot of creative control and a lot of money and that's what we like.

We've been contacted by some labels already but we just want to have fun and see how far we can take it before we even start considering stuff. Passion Pit wanted to sign us to their label but we don't want to limit ourselves by signing to another band's tiny label. I don't mean that in an insulting way, but it would be like, "Oh, those are Passion Pit's friends." We want to be bigger than that. We've got dreams, you know? This music thing is to get us big enough so we can pursue our real passions.

Pitchfork: Like what?

D: I've been writing some musicals, screenplays, pornography. I might mix it up with a musical-animation porno. I've got a jingle for Zales Jewelers that I'm hoping to launch around Mother's Day next year.

Pitchfork: How do you go about writing a porn film?

D: It just started out as a joke at a party, but then we really needed to come up with some money for rent. So we wrote a Cragislist post to see if people would be interested in being in our soft core porn film. We didn't expect to hear back from too many people, but I still get e-mails about it to this day.

We wanted to do something really tasteful and artful with minimal penetration shots. Like a beautiful piece of art that would change the porn world forever. But the candidates we had were busted.

Pitchfork: Your songs are lo-fi right now. Do you want to try to record in a more professional environment?

D: Oh yeah, that'd be great. We just pooped out these songs on the EP. We'll obviously write way better songs in the future. We want to just totally reinvent ourselves while referencing old, cool stuff while having a new school spin on it.

Pitchfork: I like bands with ambition.

D: That's what people pay to go see. Don't get me wrong, I can get down with a lot of chillwave, it's just no fun to watch at all. They're just playing on their samplers, bobbing and weaving. They're not really into it. A thousand bands are doing that whole thing now. People want to be entertained.